If you follow me on Twitter, you know that this gift was a labor of love. Because of the glorious time change, and because I was absorbed with looking for new food blogs and updating my Google Reader for, like, 6 hours (instead of drinking green beer and eating corned beef and cabbage… Happy St. Patrick’s Day, by the by) I lost track of time. While I’m not complaining–I’ll never, ever again complain about blue sky and sunlight–the homemade pizza dough recipe didn’t get started until 8:30. And it needed a lot of time to rise. So lofty goals of homemade pizza night for K and I turned into Bruschetta pepperoni bites. Blog post coming shortly.

I didn’t give up, though.

Caramelized Onion, Mushroom and Goat Cheese Pizza with Fig Spread

I’m not going to include the pizza dough recipe because frankly, it was a little disappointing. I think it was a combination of a cold apartment, no kneading space, and a weird recipe. It’s not the point, anyway. The point is, put these ingredients on an old flip flop and you’ll swoon. Great pizza dough is just a bonus.

Start by sauteing sliced onions in some butter and olive oil on medium heat for about 5 minutes. They will get that lovely, brown, caramelized onion look. Then turn down the heat to low and cook for about 10-15 more minutes, which will bring out the sugar and make them soft and sweet. Season these with salt and pepper.

Then remove the onions, add a little more olive oil, and saute some roughly chopped baby portobella mushrooms (Or any mushrooms you like. I’m not the mushroom police). Let these cook, stirring occasionally, on medium heat for about 10 minutes. Don’t add salt and pepper until the end because the salt will draw out the moisture in the mushrooms, taking the flavor with it.

While the mushrooms are doing their thing, microwave about 3 tablespoons of Fig spread, or fig jam, or fig jelly, whatever dude. This is what I used:

Microwave the spread for 30 seconds, just to loosen it up so it’s more spreadable. Then thinly spread it onto the pizza dough.

Then add 3/4 of the mushrooms, onions, and top it off with a thin (or not so thin layer) of mozzarella cheese.

Then add the rest of the onions and mushrooms, and dot the top with goat cheese.

Bake this according to your dough instructions, as really you only need to melt the cheeses. You might want to do so on tin foil, because the fig spread melted onto my pan, and the sugar in it caused it to burn. Not looking forward to washing that.

I know this is a little bit involved and doesn’t use things that you’d typically have in your pantry, but it’s so worth it. It’s sweet from the figs and the onions, earthy from the mushrooms, and tangy from the goat cheese. It’s delicious

I’m really so grateful that Spring indeed comes every year, even if Winter does last well into March. I hope you are all as sunny and blue-skied as we are. Go celebrate. It’s Spring!